In addition to being the leader of the group, Colin Batley fitted a number of stereotypes we have been told we must accommodate in our homeland or else be branded “racist”. Neighbours described Batley as “an evil bully” and told of the cross of St. George flag on his house and his penchant for swaggering along the street in a challenging manner accompanied by his two rottweilers. So in addition to being a dangerous paedophile he was clearly an English patriot of the type we have all come to know and despise.

However, one fact that has attracted nothing more than a passing mention is that the gang was allocated neighbouring properties in a Cydweli cul-de-sac by a local housing association. So the obvious question is: given that these people were practising sexual deviants before leaving London, and had the convictions to prove it, why were they given a block of houses in a small town by a ‘Welsh’ housing association? Dozens of children in the area were repeatedly raped by the gang. The name of Cydweli / Kidwelly is now globally recognised, for the wrong reasons. And all because a ‘Welsh’ housing association behaved so irresponsibly.

On a number of occasions I have exposed and condemned the ‘Any-English-riff-raff-welcome’ strategy followed by ‘our’ housing associations. So, in a sense, this was a case just waiting to happen. But what about all the other low-life colonists causing more low-key problems in our communities, those who never make it to Crown Court and world media attention? Why do we have to put up with them? Or, more fundamentally, why do we have to endure ‘Welsh’ housing associations operating as they currently do?

‘Welsh’ housing associations clearly have links with local authorities and other agencies in England that want to get rid of problem families, drug addicts, alcoholics and criminals of all kinds. How else would a group of poorly educated sexual perverts in east London end up in a Welsh town they’d never heard of? The only conclusion to draw is that ‘Welsh’ housing associations are using Welsh public money to help solve England’s social problems and, by so doing, inflicting untold misery on Welsh communities. This system is indefensible and it must be stopped.

After the resounding Yes vote last week and now that the Assembly has power over housing in Wales housing associations must be reorganised so that they serve Wales not England. They must no longer use Welsh communities as dumping grounds for England’s undesirables. Housing associations must cease being an element in the Plantation strategy. Failure by the Assembly to act will be a betrayal of Wales and the Welsh nation. There can be no futher excuses and no more defending of the indefensible.

How are Wales doing, you ask? Alas! gentle reader, I fear there is no Welsh team flying the flag for us over there. You see, we are ‘represented’ by the England and Wales Cricket Board . . . in other words, England is our team. Though apart from a mention in the body’s official name no one would ever know that Wales exists. Even the Board’s website address – http://www.ecb.co.uk/ – says it all.

Which means that, in a sense, Ireland has just beaten Wales, too; so we Taffs should be dejected, unhappy . . . but somehow I don’t see it like that. I’m over the moon, me – the Paddies have just stuck it up the Sais! At cricket!

The blame for this, yet another, ‘For “Wales”, see “England”‘ situation, can be laid firmly at the door of the shoneens down in Cardiff who turned Glamorgan County Cricket Club into Cardiff City Cricket Club, and then demanded Welsh public money to turn Sophia Gardens into the Swalec Stadium, a ground fit for Test matches. (England Test matches, of course.) All done to ‘promote Wales on a world stage’. Though hosting the two England v Pakistan Twenty/20 matches resulted in Cardiff City Cricket Club posting a financial loss last year. (No doubt they’ll be back with the begging bowl very soon; if not directly to the Assembly then to Cardiff City Council, which will claim it back from the Assembly.)

Astute readers will by now have noticed the flaw in the shoneens’ ‘promote Wales on a world stage’ argument. Because apart from a few Wisden saddoes who the hell knows that the England team also represents Wales? What’s more, staging England Test matches in Cardiff doesn’t register overseas because it’s the England team playing, and so viewers around the world assume that Cardiff is somewhere north of Birmingham.

Obviously Wales would be better promoted if – like Ireland, the Netherlands and Canada – we had our own national team at the World Cup. Especially as this World Cup is being played in India, a cricket-mad country and one of the biggest and fastest-growing economies on earth. But the shoneens and those who think like them don’t really give a shit about Wales. In fact, they’re rather anti-Welsh; this is all about further integrating Wales into England.

Yet given the media exposure Ireland is now enjoying in India, and the many cricket-loving Indian investors, entrepreneurs and industrialists who are viewing Ireland in a very positive light, Ireland could do very well financially from this World Cup. By comparison, what will Wales get out of it? Exactly! Because Welsh cricket is run by a bunch of blazered buffoons who put England’s interests before ours, and because our politicians and our media can’t see how we lose out by being stuck with the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Perhaps more importantly, what does it say about us, as a nation, that we allow such organisations to ‘represent’ us? Even if you’re not a cricket fan, you can surely see the insulting absurdity inherent in the England and Wales Cricket Board? If you do nothing else, make a note of this body for future reference.